Operation Backfire
Francis Spufford: Britain’s space programme, 28 October 1999
“... which the whole of human history had taken place. The war, and all previous wars, and all previous peace, lay under the starlit cloud-systems that stretched away to the curve of the planet’s edge, where the glitter of tomorrow’s sunlight brightened the rim. Then the rocket accelerated down from space into the whorl of cloud over the Thames Estuary, to ... ”